Conclusions

A Museum is a kind of cultural warehouse (Annis 1994: 21).

Shetland Museum store is a cultural warehouse, with many racks of boxes

containing the community’s material culture. Each box holds many pieces of the vast cultural jigsaw which makes these Islands distinctive. Some boxes hold ancient material that has been excavated many decades ago, waiting to be better understood and appreciated. MacSween makes a good point when discussing assemblages excavated many years ago:

In particular, assemblages from old excavations are often disregarded by researchers because they are perceived to be incompatible with more recently

excavated material and unsuitable for sustaining wider discussions. The result is that many of these are used by researchers only to provide comparable material (2002: 145).

This study has gone some way to change this perceived opinion by past

researchers; the assemblages from old excavations re-evaluated here add much to the narrative and understanding of Shetland’s prehistoric pottery. New information has been added to their story; pottery trends noted can now be dated more precisely adding new interpretations to the museum record. This narrative can now

complement the work completed by Mason, on Shetland’s earlier collection, and Towers’ review of Orkney’s IA pottery. Collectively, a much fuller comprehension of the North Atlantic Rim ceramic record is possible and confirms the significant value of old assemblages curated in local museums.

The current study has resulted in a digitised catalogue of all sherds examined which is now available for future scrutiny thus aiding the collection’s accessibility for all.

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Museum specialist Neil MacGregor confirms the importance of new research within stored collections:

It is scholarship which adds a new dimension to accessibility… we believe it is essential that scholarship remain a priority if we are to serve the even larger public we expect in the next few years. (1994: 248)

The current study is not an attempt to revolutionise pottery studies in the Northern Isles. It is not written by an archaeologist but by a museum curator. It offers a comprehensive database and photographs of every sherd analysed, samples from eight excavated assemblages and the stray-find collection within Shetland Museum. It is a valuable aid for future researchers and curators to access; but it is also a working document and digital catalogue. New material should be added as current excavation assemblages are accepted into the collection, including Bayanne, Burland and Cruester.

As discussed, previous excavated assemblages have been analysed by pottery specialists in the past, offering reports showing different trends. The diagnostic sherds reviewed here are part of the important jigsaw of ceramic tradition, brought together to offer a comprehensive database; each piece analysed with a universal system of categorisation and listed using a newly created classification method. This study has afforded the author the experience to recognise pottery trends and the identification of fabric, therefore new incoming assemblages, such as Channerwick and West Ayre, Hillswick will be recorded and reported using this methodology. The sequencing of Shetland’s LBA and EIA pottery remains fraught with difficulties. As discussed in Chapter 2, archaeologists who have excavated in Shetland would have appreciated an island-wide pottery sequence to help unravel some of these issues. Hedges considered the complexities of the Shetland sequence when

discussing the Tougs assemblage (1986). He noted that while we have LBA material from Jarlshof, ‘functional undecorated bucket to barrel-shaped pots’, not all sites from the same period fit neatly into the Jarlshof sequence (1986: 30-32). He suggests that pottery specialist Audrey Henshall realised this when she was

examining the Benie Hoos assemblage in the late 1950s and ‘excused herself from reporting on its place in the sequence for Shetland and on its affinities’ (Hedges 1986: 32).

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This problem cannot be unravelled until a thorough dating programme is undertaken. What this dissertation does offer is the menu and springboard from which this future study can be commenced. The detailed Excel sheets of each assemblage and stray finds (see Appendix 7) offer the information required for such a project; every sherd with organic material attached, necessary for radiocarbon dating, is listed and can now be easily searched and accessed. Decorated sherds can be examined for comparison from the digital catalogue, improving the access to collections that are held in storage. This offers the opportunity to save valuable time for not just

researchers but museum staff; it is no longer necessary to go through boxes and finds-lists to see that certain sherd with the unique decoration. Trends in fabric, decoration and rim type can now be easily retrieved. I hope this database and

digitised catalogue presents the catalyst for future study so that Shetland pottery can be further classified and better understood. This study has provided Shetland

Museum’s first digital reference collection of the Island’s LBA and IA pottery

assemblages, and hopefully a legacy to inspire future research, that one day we will achieve that illusive typology of Shetland pottery.

Finally, and most importantly, this thesis has afforded us a deeper understanding, not only of pottery assemblages in Shetland, but of the artistry, skills and belief systems of the people who created them.